The Color of Law

The Color of Law

A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Richard Rothstein

Between 1935 and 1944 W. E. Boeing, the founder of Boeing Aircraft, developed suburbs north of Seattle. During this period and after World War II, the South Seattle Land Company, the Puget Mill Company, and others constructed more suburbs. These builders all wrote racially restrictive language into their deeds. The result was a city whose African American population was encircled by all-white suburbs. Boeing’s property deeds stated, for example, “No property in said addition shall at any time be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased in whole or in part to any person or persons not of the White or Caucasian race.”
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